Thursday, September 06, 2007

Scaling your personality!

I just put this video up on the Freedom Club but I wanted to put it up here as well because I think it's a good intro to get people excited about PartnerCon next week.

I'm doing a brand new presentation on selling yourself over the web and I'm going to film it and put it up for all the Freedom Clubers b/c I know a lot of you can't make it and the content is amazing and super important.

This video is clearing up some misconceptions about WHY I outsource and WHY I absolutely DO NOT outsource certain areas of my business. In a small, personality driven, service industry like wedding photography we must find ways to continually sell ourselves in ways that scale.

15 comments:

I couldn't agree with you more DJ. I started out in the web design industry before switching to what I really love, photography. My website is one area that I find myself always wanting to update, to keep to who I am. I used to tell my web clients that their website is their "Front Door", people will come there first to learn more about who you are. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for that David. Yes it is a constant selling robot for us out there 24/7. Truely amazing when you look at where in the world people are located when the look at your site! All over the place.Thanksmarie

My favorite part was when you clarified that you don't have to do the work over and over and over again ... so helpful because it honors the fact that it is serious work to do what you're saying. But if done well, you should only have to do it once through scalable vehicles like the internet.

Dane - I think we need to be continually updating and changing our web presence so it's definitely not a one time shot...but focusing efforts there allow the reach to go much further than focusing efforts on things with limited reach like bridal shows, advertising, or face to face client meetings...

It's interesting to me though how some people hear that ... like it's super easy to keep things fresh all the time.

Kind of like when people ask if you work ... ha!

What I hear you saying is not to stop working but to work exclusively on what matters most. It's not that that work is easy ... it's just a lot smarter than trying to do that over and over again through non-scalable vehicles.

BTW, I doubt Mike will do anything. It's not like he or you are competitive ... haha ... can't wait for PartnerCon!

thanks for that! i just got done with my website a couple months ago and i'm still fine tuning, but i am soooo stoked to hear you say that it's best if it reflects my personality! that's what i was aiming for:)

I see a lot of photographers putting personality into their websites more than ever before and I LOVE that you promote it. But I do fear that personality might deter some perspective clients away, especially if the photog lacks in that area. What do you say to people who have no real personality or who are less confident about their identity, but have an unbridled passion for photography?

Good questions April and my advice to somebody who lacks in that area would be to focus 100000000000000% of your energy on developing that. It will not only improve your business but it will greatly improve your life!

David - I love reading your suggestions, and I've been trying to take the one on outsourcing seriously (before my beloved career kills me). One of the things I'm desperately trying to do at the moment is outsource some of my post-processing, due to different multiple health-type stuff this year, (along with being a mom to my two girls, not to mention ever seeing my husband, because I'm tied to the computer). I haven't been able to turn my weddings around anywhere *near* the time I normally am, and I feel like I'm falling behind (and behind, and behind), as I struggle to keep up. I've got about 16 weddings backed up (yes, that's sad, and true), and I was wondering who (if anyone?) you outsource your post-processing to (and/or if you'll spill in such a large forum). I tried lavalu, as that's the only one I've read about (and they graciously told me they could possibly put me on the wait list, and there might be some free time in January), and since, have been googling like mad, and haven't been able to come up with anyone who looks legit...do you have any advice and/or suggestions? (And sorry to de-lurk sounding so desperate, usually I'm a little cooler, well, maybe only slightly). =)